Quote:
Originally Posted by HighlandPete
Carl... Did you notice Autocar's Hilton Holloway's comment in the blog?
I'm not surprised to read this, once we get onto the typical roads many of us drive. Poor suspension tuning for the UK, as we have said, not a new problem for BMW. We are still guinea pigs, IMO, I clearly sense more test drives are necessary, on roads I drive.
It is so strange, but there is something about UK roads that have baffled many car makers. Even VW had issues until they head hunted Ford suspension engineers to sort the Golf platform. Rover suspension engineers were some of the best for getting it right, shame the cars were not the right image. But they could set up a car to work well in the UK, sport suspensions as well as comfort setups.
HighlandPete
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Yeah, completely agree Pete.
I do not think VDC is the answer, unless you want endless software upgrades as with early I-Drive, it would be a nightmare! God help the 5GT customers. I vote for BMW getting the non-VDC correct and ideally M-Sport for the UK.
BTW the Jaguar guys get non-VDC cars spot on (as did Rover) for our mixed roads but even the XF with VDC is knobbly (again avoid). As you say the E39 was perfect and so was the E36 IMO. It has been said many many times, "tune a car for the UK and it will work in any market". Seems BMW are obsessed with VDC and post delivery software tweaks. Best avoided for now!
I also recall a Dutch chassis tuner, who defect from BMW to Audi a while back (~10 years) and since then we've had issues - so it not just RFT issues I think, as the early E46 was also wrong! Must Google him.
Vauxhall/Opel had chassis issues too until Lotus tuned their cars for UK roads. Honda also.
Seems BMW have softened things to suite their largest market, America, as there have been major issues with over firm ride due to RFTs. Looks like they have tuned too far to comfort to hid RFT issues? Sometime you cannot avoid the laws of physics! I'm hoping M-Sport will be spot on for the UK but we are denied option 704 for some reason (marketing plays?).
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2010 E90 335i M-Sport, 2005 E90 325i M-Sport, 2003 E60 520i, 2002 E46 330i Sport II, 2000 E46 325i Sport I, 1999 E46 318i, 1998 E46 323i SE, 1996 E36 323i SE, 1996 E34 518i, 1995 E36 320iA, 1994 E36 316i